SEC Is Looking at 'Quote Stuffing'

By

Jessica Holzer And

Brett Philbin

Updated Sept. 7, 2010 6:56 p.m. ET

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro said the agency is looking at a practice others have called "quote stuffing" to assess whether it violates "existing rules against fraudulent or other improper behavior."

The practice involves trading in which unusually large numbers of orders to buy or sell stocks are placed in a fraction of a second, only to be canceled almost immediately. Ms. Schapiro...